Since I started feeling sick a couple of months ago I've been wishing for my mommy.

I don't actually have a mommy. Maybe no one has a mommy and no one ever did. Maybe she's an imaginary character in a fairytale. An archetype we dream about taking care of us, kissing boo-boos all better, snuggling us in her arms, unconditional and expansive. An unattainable standard I subconsciously compare and contrast both myself and my mother to.

Oh, but I want my mommy, right now.

I'm so very tired and there's always so much to do - for my son, for my boss, for my home - for me. I come last, every single time, and I want - so badly it feels like a need - someone to take care of me for a little while. Not only the pressing physical and financial needs, but also the emotional and mental needs for comfort, reassurance, vision, hope.

In my imagination, my mommy is good company. She is present with me saying, "This is hard, and you feel crummy. That's ok. And, we're going to get through this together." When I'm feeling fatigue or despair, she wraps me in a firm hug, "It sucks right now. I see you struggling and doing your best." Then she provides me with creature comforts - runs a hot bath or tucks me into my covers for a nap. "Let's take good care of you." Her compassionate presence and practical support remind me that I'm valuable, provide me a bridge or some internal elasticity to get over the hard parts, and give me a little more energy to keep going.

My mommy gives me a reprieve from the all the aspects of "adulting" that are bearing down on me and wearing me out. She pays the bills, brings home the groceries, cooks us a healthy and yummy dinner, and puts the laundry away. When the day's work is done, we sit together in quiet companionship, reading or watching tv or whatever it is that mommies like to do when they get to rest with their loved ones. And I'm bundled up in my p.j.s and a blanket with my head on her shoulder.

There's no one in my real life to care about and take care of me the way my mommy does. Most days this occurs to me as a fact and with a feeling of isolation and scarcity. My life is hard and no one is coming to help me. Until recently, there was judgment caught up in that, too. Something like, "My life is hard, because I make poor choices and generally suck at being an adult, and no one is coming to help me, because I'm not worth anything nevermind the resources and effort of helping." But the diagnosis of Mono stripped away the judgment, at least for a moment - the reprieve I've been pleading for. Now, right now, there is room for my mommy to slip in to how I care about and take care of myself.

I can be my mommy. A slightly less idealized version of her, since I am an in-real-life-human and not an archetype, but her nonetheless. I can remain present with myself when I'm exhausted and hopeless - feeling the feelings, jotting them down if that helps me to recognize and experience them and let them be. I can literally, sincerely, hug myself. I can draw that bath or snuggle down into those covers to give myself good care. I can practice compassion for myself. I can follow through on practical remedies with faith in my goodness, significance, and value.

There's no pause, really, in the tasks and responsibility of being an adult, especially as a divorced single mother. The reprieve is in my mind and heart. It is my mommy's compassion extended to myself. I forgot about compassion as life got harder and I got harder with it. But compassion was once my most closely held value and it's been remembered to me, first for others and now for myself.

Being my mommy to myself doesn't change the quantity of stuff I need to do to maintain my son, my job, my home, my health... It changes the qualities with which I approach and engage in each of those things. I may move more slowly, allowing myself rest. I may enjoy more comforts, like a hot bath. But in addition to those tangible actions there's the intangible grace that my mommy grants me and that's what I'm learning to give to myself. It's a practice; it's not automatic or immediate. It's good work that renders greater compassion in my life.